Molluginaceae

Mollugo Family

Green Carpetweed

FAMILY: Mollugo family (Molluginaceae) – Mollugo genus.

SPECIES: Green carpetweed (Mollugo verticillata L.).

TO UTILIZE AS FOOD: Leaves of green carpetweed are edible fresh or cooked. When eaten fresh, they taste acrid, salty, and similar to spinach or various goosefoots. Cooking offers an improvement, but the improvement is minor. Green carpetweed leaves are small and tender. Gathering a supply is tedious due to the design of the plants. The leaves resist being stripped off the stems. Gathering whole plants may be tempting, but the wiry stems contain irritating fibers that cooking won’t soften. Green carpetweed is a wild food of minor value, available in late summer.

NOTES: The brief assessment for green carpetweed was based on colonies from the Pajarito and Atascosa mountains of southern Arizona near the Mexican border. Aspiring botanists interested in the southwestern flora would not be disappointed by a field trip to this area, especially the renowned Sycamore Canyon south of Ruby.

IDENTIFICATION: Currently, only 2 species of the Mollugo genus are found in the United States, both of which occur in the Southwest. Carpetweeds are small plants that bloom in late summer. Species of the Sesuvium and Trianthema genera have capsules that split open around the equators rather than lengthwise.

Description of green carpetweed (Mollugo verticillata): FORM low-lying or ascending annual plant about 4-25 cm tall, or occasionally taller; LEAVES simple; arranged in whorls of 3-8; short-stalked; blades linear, narrowly elliptic, or oblanceolate, 1-12 mm wide by 5-40 mm long; surfaces not dusty; FLOWERS regular, ovary superior, and arranged in axillary umbels; the umbels not stalked; sepals 5, free, and white; petals 0; stamens 3-5 (usually 3), alternate to the sepals; FRUITS capsules ovoid or ellipsoid; splitting lengthwise (loculicidally); SEEDS reddish-brown to blackish; surfaces smooth or with parallel ridges; HABITAT throughout the United States, but generally absent from arid regions; blooming late summer and early autumn. NOTES: Similar-looking plants with 4-12, dusty, thread-like leaves per whorl, stalked inflorescences, and seeds with net-like ridges are probably threadleaf carpetweed (Mollugo cerviana).

REFERENCES: Green carpetweed (Mollugo verticillata): leaves Couplan (p. 107) and Ebeling (p. 483).